So why the Adagio? (...and further ruminations)

What drew me to Barber's Adagio for Strings as a possible cornerstone of a concert?

The Adagio has become ubiquitous in contemporary American culture.  It’s safe to say that the vast majority of Americans would recognize it upon hearing it, regardless of whether they could identify the piece or its composer by name.  More importantly, almost everyone who hears Barber’s piece has an intense emotional reaction to it – whether of sadness, peace, longing, or any other emotion under the sun.  And that reaction – or rather the multitude of possible reactions – is endlessly fascinating to me.

Paul Fowler, Judd Greenstein, and I have come together to share our own reactions to Barber’s Adagio and the feelings it evokes in us – intensely personal reactions, yet connected to other, similar feelings experienced by others over the years.  The pieces we have written were designed to branch off from and return to the Adagio at predetermined “points of inflection,” to become a part of the piece while commenting on it in real time.  At the same time, our compositions are designed to exist apart from the Adagio, coming together as movements of a large-scale piece called FLECTION.  Still a part of the Adagio, this Fowler/Greenstein/Haas work can – and should – be viewed outside of that context as well.

OK, now: What does that mean – “point of inflection” – in this context?

When Judd, Paul, and I went about the process of getting inside – literally inside – the Adagio, it made sense to find places in Barber’s piece that felt simultaneously like points of arrival and departure.  Those moments are full of potential energy, and – as we composers found out – Barber’s “points of inflection” are infinitely flexible, allowing us to arrive and depart in myriad different ways.  Stylistically speaking, it’s the departing from and returning to Barber’s music that relates each of the commissioned works to each other, far more potently than the actual musical material used.